Film review: Get out

Get Out was very much the surprise hit of 2017. Director Jordan Peele plucked himself out of comedy world and threw himself headlong into the horror genre with dizzying success. Not only that, the film is now nominated for Best Picture, director and actor at the Academy awards; in a series of commendations that have absolutely nothing to do with the Oscars’ troubled past with minority artists at all I’m sure. I’ve included the spoilery trailer but if you’re interested in seeing the movie, don’t watch it.

Straight up. Get out is my favourite out of this year’s Oscars crop I’ve seen thus far. It’s the only one I’ve had any inclination to re-watch (besides maybe Three Billboards). And it’s the only one that never came across as Oscar-bait to me. Plus it’s a genre film, and we don’t get many of those noms so we gotta cherish ’em.

Get out tells the story of Chris, a black guy who visits his white girlfriends family for the first time. Aside from that, the plot is too precious to spoil.

The film touches on central themes undeniably intertwined with contemporary society. However, it does so subtly and with nuances that I, as a white man, had never considered before. The racial themes are the entire point of the film but never feel forced or overbearing. The twists are delightfully absurd and feel entirely earned by the hard establishing work the film does.

On top of that, Get out is simply a great horror movie. Certainly, the scariest of the two I saw last year (the other being the still entertaining IT remake). Get out doesn’t rely on the tired, predictable ‘six seconds of silence followed by an obnoxiously loud sound effect’ jump scare formula. It, instead, uses framing, musical cues and actor performance to build a mounting atmosphere of unsettling tension throughout the run-time. That’s not to say it doesn’t use jump scares. It does. But these are typically accentuated by far more than a lazy press of the mute button.

I haven’t even mentioned that it’s funny yet. Lil Rey Howery steals every scene in perfect delivery of side-splitting dialogue that contrasts the creepy vibe punch for punch. Peele spectacularly pulls off probably the two hardest things in film-making, comedy and horror, and he does it in his first film.

I certainly hope it gets all the recognition it deserves at the Oscars but, at the end of the day, I don’t need the academy’s approval to validate how much I loved this movie.